Take It To The Source

Why, one wonders, are Perle and Frum going on about the Democrats? Given their argument, the main culprit here President George W. Bush and his father. There’s no reason to think that the Bush family wants to take on Saudi Arabia; nor for that matter, is there much reason to think that the President wants regime change in that country. And, unless Perle and Frum have forgotten, Bush is the person who is in the White House right now. It was Bush, after all, that suppressed 28 pages of a Congressional report on the 9/11 attacks because it might have embarassed the Saudis. Indeed, Bush’s continuous policy of looking the other way when it comes to the Saudis completely undermines Perle and Frum’s argument that the President has been steadfast on going after countries that foster terrorism since 9/11. So why isn’t this editorial a broadside against the Bush Administration rather than a taunt against the Democrats?

Could it be that Perle and Frum have different standards of consistency for Republicans and Democrats? Nah, couldn’t be. — Via Balkinization - (Jack M. Balkin) - 21 Jan 04

Definitely. Everyone is quick to point fingers of blame, but really, if they want to be critical of the Dems, they ought to at least take a look at things as applied to the current Administration and his political party, as well. Could it be the fact that Saudi Arabia is sitting smack dab on top of the world’s largest oil reserve that has something to do with our unwillingness to examine Saudi’s role in terrorism? Could it be the fact that Iraq is sitting on top of the world’s second largest oil reserve, and we knew well in advance that taking down Saddam wasn’t going to pose much of a problem (in terms of level of difficulty, I don’t think they considered the morality issues at all) that led to this war we now find ourselves in? Could it be the fact that the Russians were trying to gain access to all this oil with a pipeline project that was going to run straight through Afghanistan that led the U.S. to step in and stop that from happening, as well? Quite frankly, all the humanitarian-sounding excuses for these actions are just that, excuses… the real reasons we step into these sorts of things almost never see the light of primetime television, much less front page coverage on major U.S. newspapers.

But bloggers do find out and blog about those things… we often use some of the same sources of information that traditional reporters use. We don’t, however, have a company paying for our news subscriptions, nor any of the other “perks” that come from working in a traditional setting.

I like to think of blogging as the “poor man’s” media. We may not have the staff working for us or helping us do our research, we may not even have a plush corner office or a company watercooler to gather at, but independently we do dig for the interesting stories. We answer to no one but ourselves and our readers, and if there are inaccuracies, extremist viewpoints, or even outright lies, it won’t be long until someone will come along and refute such things. Bloggers are, for the most part, very unforgiving of liars and propagandists. Those that have blogged for a while (and haven’t abandoned the activity) are those that can survive. Blogging is, in some ways, a “survival of the fittest” evolutionary model of human-computer networks.

By the way, I’m very impressed with what I’ve been reading on Balkinization. I don’t see any commenting allowed there and with blog*spot, there is no trackback, unfortunately, or I’d have left a comment there. Jack M. Balkin is a Knight Professor of Constitutional Law and the First Amendment, and Director of The Information Society Project at Yale Law School.